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HEALTH IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 

Nortlieasterii Ohio Teachers' Association, 

By BV^'a/hINSDAL_, 

PRESIDENT OF HIRAM COLLEGE. 




Perhaps the hest introduction to this paper will be a brief 
account of the way it came to be written. 

At the last meeting of this Association, held in Warren in 
June, it was stated in one of the papers read, that excessive 
demands in the wa}^ of study were a pronounced tendency of 
the public schools. In the discussion that followed, this state- 
ment was challenged. It was admitted on all hands, that the 
charge is a very common one ; but it was claimed, on one side, 
that it has no foundation in fact, but is a sort of cant afloat in 
the air, while it was insisted, on the other, that the charge is 
true. Out of this discussion, which was quite an animated 
one, grew a motion that I should prepare a paper on the sub- 
ject, to be read at this meeting. Before this motion was put to 
vote, I declined to undertake the task, if it were understood 
that I was to confine myself to the main question, but signified 
a willingness to do so if allowed to discuss some of its general 
bearings. With this understanding the motion carried, and 
the appointment was accepted. 

In redeeming my promise, let me,^ first of all, call attention 
to the fact, that excessive demands in the way of stud}^ is a 
constant and emphatic charge against the public schools. Two 



.^6 



2 Health in the Public Schools. 

classes of witnesses, especially, are pretty unanimous in their 
testimony on this point. The first class consists of those news- 
paper writers and magazinists, who have occasion, from time 
to time, to discuss our public education. What startling pic- 
tures these draw, every now and then ! As a specimen of their 
work, though it is quite mild in tone, I make an extract from 
the " Editor's Table " of the Ladies' Repository^ found under the 
expressive head, " Cruelty' to School Children " : 

"Though old modes are abandoned, Ave are of opinion that school 
teachers still practice cruelties on the sensitive nature of childhood as 
severe as those of the cherry, oak, birch, and rawhide dispensation. 
Sarcasm and ridicule can be made as terrible weapons, and can inflict as 
savage wounds, as the ruler or rattan. The competitive system, study- 
ing for rank and marks and promotion, has its martyrs as well as the 
rod. In these days school curriculums are overloaded, scholars are over- 
tasked, made to carry on more studies and to study more hours than is 
good for the bodily health or for the due growth of the mind in strength 
and knowledge. Besides the six hours a day confinement in the school- 
room, teachers assign tasks for the pupils to con out of school under the 
eyes of their parents, thus abridging their hours of play and exercise, or 
robbing parents of the assistance of the children in the various services 
required in household management. Six hours a day ought to be the 
limit of attention to books with every child during the period of growth, 
and those six ought to be broken into periods of play and relaxation at 
due intervals. Assigning exercises for out-of-school hours should in no 
case be allowed, and keeping after school should be a punishment re- 
served for cases that require severe measures and stringent discipline." 

In general, we may suppose these literary people believe and 
feel what they say, at least for the time being. At the same 
time, however, it is clear, that many of them are drawn to the 
subject by what we may call the newspaper sense. Slashing 
articles, on almost all subjects, are greedily read by the people. 
And then the picture of school children, with big heads and 
small bodies, full of nerves, without lymph or phlegm, thin- 
blooded and bow-legged, bending all day over books that are 
both too many and too hard, precocious as Paul Dombey, and 
going like him to an early grave, has great attractions for the 
literateur who turns his attention to education. . 

The second class of persons is the medical profession. Am I 
not within the bounds of truth when I say, that the great ma- 
jority of practicing physicians, especially in the cities, hold the 
opinion that the burden of study laid on children in the schools 
is too heavy ? And the doctors claim to have exceptional op- 
portunities for ascertaining the facts. Dr. E. H. Clarke, for ex- 



. Health in the Public Schools. 3 

ample, says the places to study the effects of coeducation are 
" the sick chamber, not the schoolroom ; the physicians private 
consultation, not the committee's public examination ; the 
hospital, not the college, the workshop, or the parlor."* I do 
not charge the doctors with bringing a railing accusation 
against the teachers. In some respects their opportunities for 
getting at the facts are no doubt exceptionally good; but they 
are peculiarly liable to fall into some fallacies that I shall have 
occasion to point out before this paper is concluded. 

On the other hand, teachers, as a class, are almost equally 
unanimous in denying that their pupils are overworked; and 
they, too, claim that they have unequaled opportunities of find- 
ing out the truth. Whether the teachers also are liable to fall 
into mistakes will also come in my way to inquire. 

So far as the public mind is concerned, it is a good deal be- 
wildered. Parents, Avhen the question comes before them in a 
practical way, generally decide with the physician or the teach- 
er, according as the pressure is more or less. 

In the meantime, the question at issue is one of immense 
importance. Our common schools are a growth of more than 
two hundred years. They have cost vast sums of money, and 
infinite pains : with all their imperfections, they are a fair ex- 
pression of our average educational sense and culture. We 
have built them up for the most cogent and imperative reasons, 
some intellectual, some political, some moral. We have in- 
tended them as a mighty instrument of improvement. Are 
they rather an instrument of deterioration ? Is the health of 
our children breaking down under their school burdens ? Is 
the American child-constitution unable to support American 
school instruction as now organized ? Are our efiorts to train 
the mind ruining the body ? If these questions are to be an- 
swered in the affirmative, we ought to know it, that we may 
readjust our system; if in the negative, we ought to know it, 
that we may silence ignorant clamor. The question is all the 
more important, because there is so much reason to think that 
what I shall venture to call the American race, is falling off in 
physical power. Before making such remarks as I have to 
offer on this point, let me guard myself against possible mis- 
aiDprehension. 

There is a class of persons who hold that the mind is built 

* Sex in Education, pp. 61-2. 



4 Health in the Public Schools. 

up at the expense of the body. They associate a high degree 
of physical power, with a low degree of mental cultivation, 
and regard weakness and effeminacy as characteristics of a high 
civilization. This opinion I scout utterly. It is a part of that 
habit of mind which attributes such extraordinary virtues to 
the savage, as though the savage were not a weak and misera- 
ble creature the world over ! The famed Arabian steed, whose 
fleetness is proverbial, it is well known, is no match for the 
thorough-bred horse of the English or American turf: no more 
is the rude man of the woods, even in point of physical power 
and endurance, a match for the thorough-bred man of civiliza- 
tion. It would certainly be strange if God had given us a 
nature, one half of which can not be cultivated, save at the 
expense of the other half; still, civilized peoples have often 
declined physically, as they will no doubt do again. This does 
not spring from any necessary connection between physical 
weakness and cultivated life, but rather from the vices of the 
latter. But without elaborating this thought further, let me 
return to the statement that there is much reason to hold that 
the American people are exhibiting evidences of a decline in 
physical power. 

Those who hold that such is the fact, rest their proposition 
partly on the testimony of the medical profession, and partly 
on the vital statistics of the country. Under the latter head, 
for example, it has been ascertained that the number of chil- 
dren under a given age, say fifteen years, as compared with the 
number of women between fifteen and fifty, is constantly be- 
coming smaller. The " Circular of Information " sent out by 
the National Bureau of Education for March, 1872, along with 
other valuable matter from the same source, contained a table 
compiled from the Census Reports from 1800 to 1860, by Dr. J. 
M. Toner, a scholarly physician of a statistical turn of mind, 
that puts this subject in a clear light. In the state of Ohio, 
within that period, the falling off was more than fifty per cent. 
In the other states the results were similar, though not in all 
cases so striking. In a later publication, Dr. Toner returned 
to the subject, this time showing that, taking the country to- 
gether, " in 1830 there were to every thousand marriageble 
women, one thousand nine hundred and fift3^-two children under 
fifteen years of age. Ten years later, there were one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-three, or eighty-nine less children to 
every thousand women than in 1830. In 1850, this number 



Health in the Public Schools. 5 

had declined to one thousand seven hundred and twenty ; in 
1860, to one thousand six hundred and sixty-six ; and in 1870, 
to one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. The total de- 
cline in the forty years was three hundred and eighty-four, or 
about twenty per cent of the whole proportional number in 
1830." He proved further, that " the United States Census of 
1870 shows that there is in the city of New York, but one child 
under fifteen years of age to each thousand nubial women, 
where there 'ought to be three' ; and the same is true of other 
large cities."* This startling result is due principally from 
two causes. The first is an increasing mortality among chil- 
dren in the large cities, consequent upon over-crowding ; and 
the second, a diminishing birth-rate, consequent on a variet}'' 
of causes that need not be here mentioned. Under the first 
head, I desire to say, that about fifty per cent of all children 
born in the large cities die before the}- reach the age of five ; 
and under the second, the diminishing birth-rate appears to 
point unmistakably to a loss of vital power on the part of our 
people. 

Especially is it charged that American women are deterior- 
ating physically. Unfortunately, this question, from being a 
matter of dry statistical inquiry, has become part of a heated 
controversy, from its supposed bearing on coeducation, and it 
accordingly draws to itself some of that "suffusion of the will " 
of which Bacon speaks in one of his writings. Keeping wide 
of this controversy, I feel bound to say that, from whatever 
cause, the charge against American women is well founded. 

Into the causes of our physical deterioration, I make no in- 
quiry. Some Europeans are wont to say that our country does 
not supply the physical conditions of continued physical power 
and tone. Dr. Clarke seems to have lent some countenance to 
this view, when he argued at Detroit — 

"No race of humankind has yet obtained a permanent foothold upon 
this Continent. The Asiatics trace back their life in Asia so far that the 
distance between to-day and their recorded starting-point seems like a 
geologic epoch. The descendants of the Ptolemies still linger about the 
Nile. The race that peopled Northern Europe, when Greece and Eome 
were young, not only retains its ancient place and power, but makes 
itself felt and heard throughout the world. On this Continent races 
have been born, and lived, and disappeared. Mounds at the West, ves- 
tiges in Florida, and traces elsewhere, proclaim at least two extinct races. 

* The Nation, No. 426. 



6 Health m the Public Schools. 

The causes of their disappearance are undiscovered. We only know that 
they are gone. The Indian whom our ancestors confronted was losing 
his hold on the Continent when the Mayflower anchored in Plymouth 
Bay, and is now rapidly disappearing also. It remains to be seen if the 
Anglo-Saxon race, which has ventured upon a continent that has proved 
the tomb of antecedent races, can be more fortunate than they in main- 
taining a permanent grasp upon this Western World. One thing, at 
least, is sure, it will fail, as previous races have failed, unless it can pro- 
duce a physique and a brain capable of meeting successfully the de- 
mands that our climate and civilization make upon it."* 

Without either sanctioning this theory or propounding any- 
other, I would urge that the vital condition of our population, 
apart from any other considerations furnishes abundant reason 
why we should investigate the relations of our public schools 
to the public health. 

Any really valuable inquiry into these relations must be 
strictly inductive. In this field, it is idle to theorize or specu- 
late. Nothing but carefully observed and registered facts can 
guide us to satisfactory conclusions. It was for this reason that 
I declined, at Warren, to undertake a discussion of the main 
question. In the first place, I had no such experience as would 
enable me to speak with authority ; in the second place, I was 
not familiar with the literature of the subject; while it was 
impossible for me to make good either of these defects. What 
is more, I was then doubtful, as I still am, whether there has 
been collected the data necessary for any general conclusion. 
This opinion is held, however, on negative, rather than on 
positive, grounds. 

But while the inquiry must be strictly inductive, it is an in- 
duction attended by some peculiar difficulties. We sometimes 
go wild over a mass of facts. The truth is, facts are of little, 
if any value, until they have been sifted, classified, and inter- 
preted by the intelligence. The Baconian method has not 
abolished theory ] it has only placed it after the facts, not be- 
fore them. Suppose it be charged that a large number of chil- 
dren in the schools are in poor health. This is a plain question 
of fact, and can be very easily determined. But the philoso- 
pher asks. What is the cause of this state of affairs ? All the 
facts ever gathered by the vital statistician, until interpreted 
by the philosopher, will never answer this question. It is not 
a question easily answered, and I must think that the great 

•* The Nation, No. 476. 



Health in the Public Schools. 7 

majority of teachers and parents, as well as many physicians, 
from want of the requisite powers and habit of analysis, are in- 
capable of the effort. It brings us into the field of cause and 
effect, that high region of thought where so many and such 
serious mistakes are made in reasoning. Without any logical 
discriminationof these mistakes, let me say, one of the most 
frequent and flagrant is this : to conclude when one thing fol- 
lows another, that the two stand in the relation of cause and 
effect ; thus confounding 'post hoc and propter hoc — a head under 
which more popular fallacies can be exhibited than under any 
other known to logic. For example, it has been observed that 
the ratio of the convicts in our prisons who can not read and 
Avrite, to those who can, is very great ; from which fact it has 
been inferred that illiteracy is the principal cause of crime. 
That there is no such necessary relation, has been fully shown 
by Mr. Herbert Spencer in a passage which has taught one 
pr^rson, at least, to be slow, especially when reasoning on social 
affairs, to accept coexistence or consecutiveness of time as indi- 
cating cause and effect. Here is the passage : 

" We have no evidence that education, as commonly understood, is a 
preventive of crime. Those perpetually reiterated newspaper para- 
graphs, in which the rat'ios of instructed to uninstrncted convicts are so 
triumphantlj' stated, prove nothing. Before any inference can be drawn, 
it must be shown that these instructed and uninstrncted convicts come 
from two equal sections of society, alike in all other respects but that of 
knowledge— similar in rank and occupation, having similar advantages, 
labouring under similar temptations. But this is not only not the truth ; 
it is nothing like the truth. The many ignorant criminals belong to a 
most unfavourably circumstanced class ; whilst the few educated ones 
are from a class comparitively favoured. As things stand it would be 
equally logical to infer that crime arises from going without animal food, 
or from living in badly-ventilated rooms, or from wearing dirty shirts ; 
for were the inmates of a gaol to be catechized, it would doubtless be 
found that the majority of them had been placed in these conditions. 
Ignorance and crime are not cause and effect; they are coinciding re- 
sults of the same cause. To be wholly untaught is to have moved 
amongst those whose incentives to wrong-doing is strongest; to be par- 
tially taught is to have been one of a class subject to less urgent tempta- 
tions ; to be well taught is to have lived almost beyond the reach of the 
usual motives for transgression. Ignorance, therefore, (at least in the 
statistics referred to) simply indicates the pressure of crime-producing 
influences, and can no more be called the cause of crime than the fall- 
ing of a barometer can be called the cause of rain."* 

'^ Social Statics, pp. 379-80. 



8 Health in the Pjiblic Schools. 

Let us apply a similar analysis to the matter in hand. 

Let it be granted that an undue proportion of pupils are 
breaking dv>wn in health in the schools. It does not follow 
that the cause Mall be found at school. School is only one ele- 
ment in the child's life. He leads a home-life besides, and 
very likely, a social life into the bargain. Now the cause of 
his loss of health may be at home, or in the social circle. His 
health may fail because he is badly fed or -clothed, because he 
is overworked at home, because he spends too much time in 
society or on the streets ; it ma}^ be on account of one, or two, 
or all of these facts. Under these circumstances it will be 
granted, that it requires a good deal of knowledge and acumen 
to determine the real cause. But a pupil's health shows signs 
of giving way, a physician is called in, the six hours a day 
spent at school is to the physician, as it probably is to the 
parent, the most obtrusive fact of the pupil's life. The physi- 
cian says the child is studying too hard, and recommends that 
he be taken from the school; Avhile the report goes abroad that 
the school teacher is working the children to death. Obviously, 
in the case supposed, the physician should say, clothe this 
child in a more rational manner, give him more wholesome 
food, take him out of society, keep him off the streets, and do 
not let him sit up so late at night. Whether the demands 
made on school children are excessive or not, I am convinced 
that a good deal of ill health is charged to the schools, that 
ought to be carried to the account of bad handling at home. 

But for argument's sake, we will grant that the doctors are 
right, and that the trouble is at school. But where, at school? 
Here we are confronted by another difficulty as embarrassing 
as the one just considered. As school is only one element in a 
pupil's life: so the amount of study required of him is only 
one element of his school life. Other elements enter into the 
problem, and it must not be concluded that the teacher's de- 
mands are excessive, because his pupils are suffering in health. 
The teacher may not impose too much work, but he may re- 
quire it to be done in such ways, or he may have such absurd 
methods of instruction, that the amount required is a weari- 
ness to the flesh as well as to the mind. What is more, the 
physical conditions under which the work is performed may be 
unfavorable. The National Commissioner very justly says : 

" Headache, bleeding at the nose, diseases of the eye and spine, dys- 
pepsia, affections of the bronchial tubes and lungs, exanthematous 



Health in the Public Schools. g 

fevers, diptheria, and many other complaints, have undoubtedly been 
induced, or aggravated by the collection of numerous children in school 
under unfavorable conditions, as to ventilation, light, heat, cleanliness, 
exercise, and habits of study. School furniture is responsible for much 
curvature of the spine. Bad print, bad light, and bad position of the 
head while studying continually, cause distortions of the eye and result 
in trouble."* * 

This statement is sufficient to show that our school adminis- 
tration may be working badly in a sanitary point of view, and 
yet the fault may not be unreasonable demands in the way of 
study. At all events, there is here plenty of room to fall into 
fallacies. As the six hours a day in school is the most striking 
fact in the pupil's life, and therefore more likely to be seized 
hold of than any other to explain the loss of health, so the les- 
sons are the most striking fact of his school life, and therefore 
the more likely to be charged with such ill health as the 
schools produce. Hence, as the school is often charged with 
consequences really caused by forces acting at home, so the les- 
sons are often charged with the effects of poor ventilation, bad 
heating arrangements, and insufficient exercise. When a 
human being's life is marked by no prominent fact, it is fre- 
quently difficult demonstrably to trace disease to its real cause ; 
and the demonstration is especially difficult in tjie case of the 
pupil at school. 

That a good deal of disease and many deaths are traceable to 
the common schools, and other places of education, I have not 
the slightest doubt. But it has been well remarked : " When 
we look for the causes which explain any knoAvn evil, we usu- 
ally find that many concurrent causes unite to produce the re- 
sult. It is seldom that we can trace in society any great evil 
to the action of any sole cause." Notabh^ is this the case with 
young persons attending school. Perhaps some of these con- 
current causes should be stated at greater length. 

The Board of Health for the state of Michigan, a little more 
than a year ago, appointed a committee on buildings, public 
and private, including ventilation, heating, etc., at the head 
of which was placed Dr. R. C. Kedzie. The report of the Board 
for 1873 contains a report from Dr. Kedzie on " School Build- 
ings, in relation to their construction, warming, and ventila- 
tion, as influencing the health of teachers and scholars." This 
very valuable document I have consulted in preparing this 

* Report for 1872. 



lo Health in the Public Sehools. 

paper. Dr. Kedzie shows that in Michigan much mischief is 
done by overcrowding schoolrooms. He also insists, and with 
manifest truth, that great injury is caused, especially to girls 
of certain ages, by lofty schoolhouses, entailing upon pupils an 
unreasonable amount of stair-climbing. He says under the 
first head, "the lowest estimate would require three hundred 
cubic feet of space, and twenty-five feet of floor space for each 
scholar " ; and under the second, he insists that a schoolhouse, 
except for the most imperative reasons, should not be more 
than two stories high. He also indicts the large schoolhouses, 
those where a thousand or fifteen hundred children are massed, 
and claims that houses of moderate size are far better. He also 
traces much ill health to imperfect Avarming and bad ventila- 
tion. In order to obtain satisfactory information in regard to 
ventilation, Dr. Kedzie visited some thirty schools, "examin- 
ing their principal rooms, their mode of warming and ventila- 
tion, the degree of impurity in the air of the schoolrooms, 
their condition in regard to temperature, dryness", etc. The 
results he tabulates in his report. He frequently found a dif- 
ference in the temperature at the floor level and at the desk 
level of from eight to fifteen degrees; in one instance it was 
nineteen, and in another it was twentj^-one degrees. In the 
last case the 'teacher exclaimed in astonishment, " Why we 
ought to keep the head cool and the feet warm, and how am I 
to do it?" The reply was, that in such a schoolroom it was 
impossible, unless the children stood on their heads ! Plainly 
it would be as reasonable to expect a man to be healthy, when 
his head was in the torrid zone and his feet in the frigid, as it 
would be to expect children to be healthy whose extremities 
were immersed in air of such different temperatures. Dr, 
Kedzies's report, of which I have not even attempted an analy- 
sis, is deserving of wide attention ; it is good reading in Ohio 
as well as in Michigan. 

The attempt of the teacher to trace a pupil's loss of health 
to its proper cause or causes, is attended by some peculiar difii- 
culties. A statement of these will show the fallacies into 
which he is liable to fall. 

Those which I shall mention, arise from his bias as a teacher. 
He knows about what a pupil should do; he has his own stand- 
ards of work, resting on experience and formulated in " the 
course ", and he is constantly falling into habits of routine. 
Not only so : he is interested in his own work, thinks the busi- 



Health in the Public Schools. 1 1 

ness of the pupil is to be a pupil, and is as apt as other people 
to locate the causes of evils at a distance from himself; in 
other words, his bias predisposes him to trace failure in health 
to the pupils home life. What is more, he probably knows 
jfcess of the child's home life than the phj-sician or the parent 
.does of the school lifg. If a child leaves the school, perhaps 
the teacher does not know why ; or, if he knows that the cause 
is ill health, he loses sight of the invalid, and thinks no more 
about him. Besides, the teacher is occupied with the promi- 
nent features of his work; in his thoughts he emphasizes the 
things that are to his mind ; he is more interested in his 
strong and vigorous puj)ils than in the weak ones. His atten- 
tion is fixed on those jDupils who keep on to the end of the 
march, and, as the end is neared, he scarcely notices how the 
column has thinned out, or, if he does, he hardly inquires after 
the missing. I do not mean that this is true of all teachers, or 
of the same teacher at all times; I mean only that these are 
very natural^ and very pronounced tendencies of the teaching 
class. It might be supposed that the teacher, of all people in 
the world, would be fitted to decide how much study should be 
required of pupils in school ; probably he is, but enough has 
been said to show how fallible his judgments are likeh" to be. 
To these considerations two others may be added: the teacher's 
relative want of physiological and psychological training, and 
his perpetual tendency toward routine. 

Fellow-teachers, you Avill agree that I have been markedly 
successful in talking around the subject. But j^ou will remem- 
ber that I never promised to do more than talk around it. Per- 
haps I have said enough to emphasize the subject, and to 
furnish some useful hints for making the inquiry. Let us 
now pass to some related matters. If it be true that the vital 
condition of our population is deteriorating, in what relation 
does this fact stand to our work as teachers ? Some will say : 
"Grant that the child ought to be able to perform the tasks 
assigned ; grant that he is able, provided the home life were 
what it should be; nevertheless, homes are what they are, and are 
not likely to be rapidly changed for the better. What shall the 
educator therefore do? Shall he pay no attention to the com- 
mon conditions of child life? Shall the teacher add the last 
straw that breaks the camel's back ? No, let him recognize the 
facts as they are, and accommodate himself to them. Let him 
lop off a part of his demands at once, and thus give the chil- 



12 Health in the Public Schools. 

dren rest and health." Concerning this view two things should 
be said. 

In the first place, it is important to ascertain the real cause 
of any evil, that correction may be made where it belongs. If 
the home life of the child is unnatural, this fact ought to b* 
known ; especially ought it to be known, if so unnatural as to . 
interfere with his education. If society is to blame for a low 
vital condition in the schools, then society should correct itself. 
People must be given to understand that school is a fact of first 
importance in the life of a pupil. But, in the second place, 
the wise teacher will practically recognize all facts, relating to 
the child's life, in so far as they are related to his efficiency and 
success as a pupil. He will not add the straw that breaks the 
back of the camel, although he sees a whole bale of straM^ on 
the animals back that ought not to be there. He will seek first 
to have the bale taken off. He will take the facts of average 
home and school life into the account, in adjusting his system. 
But while he inquires what is, and what is likely to be, he will 
not cease to work for reforni where it is really called for. 

One glance at another matter : all courses of study, all class 
work, is based on the doctrine of averages. The demands made 
upon pupils in the public schools are graduated in that way ; 
they can be graduated in no other. Now in any normal, 
healthy civilization, there is always a variety of talent and of 
power. Hence the school standard can not be put up to the 
level of the best minds, nor put down to the level of the poor- 
est. To do the first would be to sacrifice the majority to the 
geniuses ; to do the second would be to sacrifice the majority to 
the dunces. Here is the greatest defect in the public-school 
system : it must be grounded in the wants of mediocrity. It 
gives small play for individuality of mental power and charac- 
ter. To be sure, this is a difficulty in all education except the 
solitary; but it is peculiarly so in public school education. 
Something more can probably be done to relieve this difficulty, 
but it can never be wholly overcome. With the general feat- 
ures of this subject, I am not concerned, and shall offer but a 
word or two on the special feature. The doctrine of averages 
works badly for the two extremes of ability : for bright students 
and for dull ones, for the strong and for the weak. In any 
school of considerable size, yOu will be sure to find two classes 
of pupils : those who are overtaxed mentally or physically, or 
both, and those who are capable of doing more work. Without 



Health in the Public Schools. 13 

passing on the general merits of the question, I have no doubt 
there is a class of weak pupils in the schools, who are over- 
worked. Nor do I see that it is possible to give them complete 
relief, so long as they remain in the schools. It is too much to 
demand that the majority shall wait their motions. In the 
field of morals, I believe the strong should bear the infirmities 
of the weak; but to introduce the precept here, and rigidly to 
insist upon it, would almost involve the loss of civilization. 

In conclusion, let me remark again, that all inquiries in the 
field I have skirted, must be strictly inductive. General im- 
pressions and undigested facts are of small value. I would sug- 
gest whether this Association could not perform a valuable ser- 
vice by instituting some inquiries into the vital condition of 
the public schools. Could not a circular containing appropriate 
inquiries be sent to the more experienced teachers within the 
territory, covered by the Association, calling upon them for 
their facts and conclusions? Or, would it not be well to set on 
foot in the same territory a scheme for registering the vital phe- 
nomena of the schools ? At one time I had thought of submit- 
ting such a circular, and urging the Association to commit 
itself to the enterprise ; but concluded merely to suggest the 
matter and let it go. It seems to me, however, that some facts 
could be drawn out, which, digested by some competent person 
or persons, would be of considerable value in determining this 
vexed question. Of course, either undertaking would involve 
trouble and labor, but the results would more than compensate 
for both. The physical life is the basis of all life, and if it be 
true that we, as a people, are falling off in physical power, we 
may be sure that something worse will follow, unless the pro- 
cess of deterioration is checked. 



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